Hekayti: An Introduction

The humanoid inhabitants of the planet Hekayt are divided into four distinct castes:

* Ledelkrig: Honor-driven warriors. The Ledelkrig welcomes both men and women into its ranks, although females wear their hair close-cropped. Dead warriors are loaded aboard interstellar probes and launched into space to act as advance scouts, seeking new worlds for the Hekayti to inhabit.

* Konterbeid: Efficient bureaucrats and recordkeepers. The most revered Konterbeid bureaucrats have their memories and likenesses stored as holographic AI to provide advice to the younger generations.

* Torveil: Spiritual counselors and technicians, focused on making people and machines work together. A priest of the Torveil administers the Worthing test to adolescents to help determine which caste they are most appropriate for. Torveil priests are interred in mausoleums. The most revered take their place in the pantheon of Andellig, as the Hekayti equivalent of saints and demigods.

* Verdikke: Individuals who fail the Worthing process or who are exiled from their caste for malfeasance or criminal activities become society's unwanted castoffs in this caste. One of the most infamous subgroups of this caste is the Medlidikke (Unmerciful). They are a rogue clan of outcast Ledelkrig warriors and descendants of those who were disgraced in the past. They are vicious, cruel, bloodthirsty spacefaring savages who demonstrate their superiority by ambushing and killing those they deem to be inferior. The Medlidikke take no hostages and no prisoners. Usually, they don't even bother to pillage starships they strike. They're only in it for the kill.

They call no world home and no world would want them.

On average, Hekayti stand from seven to nine-feet-tall. Their skin is mottled green, an evolutionary adaptation that they developed millennia ago to find camouflage from predators in the tropical jungles of their homeworld. They have bony growths, like ram horns, jutting from their skulls. Some Hekayti have hair, but it is a recessive trait. In males, hair is taken as an indication of weakness. In females, hair can be used to denote attractiveness.